The present invention relates generally to a cotton harvester, and more specifically to an improved picker bar assembly for the drum of a cotton picker.
Cotton picker bar assemblies, such as shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,463,543, include an upright picker bar journalled in the drum head of an upright cotton picking unit. Presently available picker bars are fabricated from an aluminum extrusion and include an upper end connected to a cam follower arm. The follower arm is seated in a cam track to properly orient the bar during harvesting so that the spindles, which are rotatably mounted in the bar, are maintained in a preselected attitude when removing cotton from the plants and when passing by the doffers and the moistener pads.
Fracturing, shearing and bending of the aluminum picker bar has been a continuing problem since the bar is one of the weakest members of the havesting unit and can be subjected to very high loading when the row unit is grounded or encounters an article such as a stump or rock. The upper end of the picker bar adjacent the grease hole for the drum head journal area and the upper end of the bar just below the cam follower arm are likely trouble areas for fracturing and shearing, respectively. A broken picker bar results in a considerable amount of expense and downtime.